A Prussian Life
by katreeny
Summary: Prussia's life, more or less historical. From a small child to the Prussia we know and love was a long and messy journey.
1. An Unwanted Child

The Unwanted Child

The she-wolf loped through the forest, her belly full of rabbit and her teats heavy and aching as she made her way through the trees. Life was difficult for a wolf with no pack and a litter of cubs. If her mate hadn't been taken by the two-legs, he would have hunted for them both so she could be safe in her den. The rest of the pack would have guarded or helped with the hunt.

A wailing cry caught her attention. It was a strange sound, nothing she had heard before, but it called to her, pulled her towards its source, even though that brought her dangerously close to the two-legs den, close enough that she could smell them when the breeze turned that way.

At the base of an ancient oak, nestled on a bed of fallen leaves, a tiny creature lay, the source of the siren wail.

The she-wolf sniffed the creature with caution, whuffing when she scented an odd mix of fire, blood, and metal. No living thing had a scent like that.

The little thing burbled, opening its eyes to stare at the she-wolf. Red eyes stared, and the wolf knew that this oddling creature was Pack, though it looked like the young of the two-legs – it didn't have the odd fur they had, just a patch of white fuzz on its head, and the red eyes were nothing like any natural thing – and what she needed to do.

The odd cub held still when she lay beside him, then little fists locked into her fur, their stubby claws too short and weak to hurt.

The she-wolf carefully rolled back to her feet, feeling the grip of the strange cub, her belly knotting with the cub's hunger. She would bring it to the den, and it could suckle with her cubs.

#

The boy lay flat on the limb of the old oak, the bark rough against his bare skin, and watched the two-legs swarm from their nest. He didn't know what drew him to them, or why he watched them so closely. It was something that he had to do, like wandering all over the land that was in some way part of him, or running with his wolves, who were also part of him.

The two-legs were part of him, too, a part that feared and hated him. He didn't understand that, but whenever one of them saw him it would make a lot of noise and then all the big ones would come boiling out of their shelters and go hunting for him.

He remembered the last time they caught him: the shouts and the hurting and the fire. The fire was worst.

Then lying in the den with wolf-mother, her warm milk soothing and helping him heal.

The noises the two-legs made, those were _words_. Words were special. They had a word for him, he'd learned: _demon_. It wasn't right, but it was the only word he knew that got used for him. The big ones who hunted him, those were _men_. If he'd been a two-leg instead of whatever he was, he'd be a _boy_.

The others, they were _girls_ and _women_. They did different things, things like turning pelts into the wraps – no, _clothes_ – they used instead of growing their own fur.

He'd thought maybe that was why he was demon, the clothes, and tried to use sharp flint he'd found in the old grave mound that was his home to scrape off the hide of a deer he'd caught, and turn it into something a bit like their clothes. It wasn't, and he only just got away from them before they burned him again.

They didn't call it burning though. They called it _sacrifice_. Or sending him home, only his home was here, all around him, the forests and the swamps and the rivers and the coast. Burning him wouldn't change that.

Another new word: they were _people_. He wasn't a people. He'd tried, learned their words by listening to them, learned how to make clothes, even tried to talk to them. All that happened was they burned him again, and he couldn't do anything to stop them. Something inside him wouldn't let him do anything that would hurt them, and when it got really cold and the white stuff they called _snow_ was everywhere, he knew when they were hungry and hunted for them, leaving his catch near their nests so they wouldn't die.

There were lots of peoples, lots of different nests. This one was closest to his home, so he watched here most. The ones who had the warm hard stuff they called _amber_ , they had more things and did something called _trade_. They didn't burn him – they tied him up and threw him in the river instead, and they still called him demon.

Right now, with summer at its height and the days long and warm and lazy, he liked to lie and watch in bare skin, a coating of mud keeping the paleness of his skin and hair from stopping him from hiding. When it got colder, he'd use his clothes again, and wrap himself in furs from his catches.

As he often did when his mind wandered, the boy wondered just what he was. He wasn't a people, he'd seen them go from tiny like him to men to old and die. He wasn't a wolf, but all the wolf-mothers would help him and the wolf-hunters would let him ride on their backs when they hunted. He wasn't an eagle, but the descendants of the eagle he'd found with a broken wing and hunted for until she could fly again followed him whenever he was near their aerie, and one of her chicks had become part of him, changing shape from a little yellow chick to a massive black eagle whenever it wanted.

As if recognizing that his thoughts touched on it, the chick peeped softly from his nest in the boy's hair, and the boy reached a hand up to rub against the chick's feathers. As always he marveled at how very soft the feathers were, not stiff or hard at all. Strange how something so soft could fly in the biggest storms.

One of the little peoples fell and set up a wail that brought a flurry of the older woman-peoples running to see what had happened. The boy wasn't sure which one pulled the little one into her arms, because his eyes started stinging.

What would it be like to be a people and have someone care if he hurt or cried? Being peoples might have bad things about it, like having to do what someone bigger and stronger said, but maybe having someone who'd look after him would make up for it?

He didn't know.

Every time the first flowers showed themselves after the cold and the snow, he'd used his flint to scratch a mark in the wall of his home, and he had hands of hands of hands of _hands_ of marks, so many he'd have to drag something in to stand on to make new marks, but he still didn't know what it meant to be a people, or how it felt to be wanted.

Maybe that was why he stayed little. Peoples with their closeness and looking after each other, they went from little to big in a few hands of winters. Then a few more hands of winters later they were tired and had maybe three more hands before they were shrinking and old. He had a feeling that was how things were supposed to work, that you got big and were a full people for a while, then you got old and got to watch while you cubs and fledglings did the work for full peoples, and then you went to the dark place where they thought he belonged, the place where you didn't have a body anymore and you were dead and had to stay with Peckols in the dark and hope his demons didn't eat what was left of you.

That was how he knew he wasn't demon. Demons didn't eat bodies, they ate the people inside. He ate food, like peoples did. So he couldn't be demon, even if he wasn't a people.

As if on cue, his stomach growled, and the boy pulled away from his thoughts. It would be dark soon: he'd best be away from the peoples dens before then so he could eat and sleep without having to worry about running into bears.

#


	2. The Ax-Smith

Gisilbert the ax-smith watched the sword fall, knowing it would end his life and unable to do anything to prevent it. The bandits had caught him and his wagon in the Prussian forests, laughing at his attempts to trade. They weren't Prussians: all of them had the look of Germans, no doubt fled from deserved execution to prey on honest travelers in this remote land.

Two, he could have handled. Even three, for none had much skill with their stolen weapons, but six men were too many for him to fight alone, and now he lay helpless as a sword stained red with his blood swung to end his time in the world.

Metal scraped on metal, a blur of motion, a high-pitched growl. The sword arced away, and the bandit fell from the ax-smith's sight, screaming. There were other screams now, the sounds of men dying, shrieks of mortal agony that never quite drowned out the growl.

The ax-smith tried to turn, to rise enough to see what twist of fate had spared him. All he achieved was a low groan.

A child's voice, pure and hesitant, speaking the heathen Prussian tongue. "Still be. Help you I."

Gisilbert was unfamiliar with the tongue, but the words seemed odd in the child's voice, as though the youngling spoke rarely if at all.

The tales he had heard of this land sprang to his mind: that the heathens would burn a man who had nothing to offer in trade, that a strange pale demon roamed the forests and killed those with ill-intent, that a smith with good weapons – and the ax-smith's weapons were more than merely good – would be welcomed with amber and silver. He'd come here in the aftermath of plague, hoping that the strangeness of the Prussians would be enough to drive the grief for his wife and children from his soul, for what man could be at peace when he had buried all he loved?

The Prussians disliked priests and monks, to be sure, but a skilled smith ought to be welcomed there.

A dirt-smeared face swam into his field of vision: small, belonging to a child of no more than four years of age, too thin to be truly healthy but with traces of baby fat in the roundness of his cheeks. The child wore a hood of rough-tanned leather, and a tunic of the same material, both as dirty as the young one's face, and both liberally splashed with drying blood.

"Help you," the child said. "Hurt you be."

Aye, he'd been hurt all right: ribs broken for sure, and possibly worse. Breathing hurt, and everything ached.

"Where..." It was hard to speak at all, harder to remember the Prussian he knew in order to ask. "Where father?"

The child shook his head. "No father. Just I." He bent, small hands gently running over the ax-smith's body.

Even that light touch was enough that the ax-smith had to choke back a scream when the boy's hands found his broken bones.

The child frowned, expression distant. The ax-smith felt rather than heard him singing something, a crooning thing, like a lullaby.

His pain faded as the boy's brows drew together. Without it, darkness closed in, and Gisilbert drifted to a place where he walked once more with his family.

#

He woke from the dreams to a place that made no sense to his eyes. He lay on furs, and flickering light showed stone walls scored with... tally marks? But none of the marks was more than three feet above the brushed-earth floor, and while they were clearly grouped, the manner of grouping was strange to him.

Gisilbert turned his head towards the source of the light, blinking. The child, still wrapped in his crude leather garments, nursed a fire with an assurance at odds with his size, pausing to check the progress of whatever was in the pot that sat atop the small fire. It smelled like rabbit.

The fire lit a portion of the space where he lay, but showed nothing the ax-smith could consider familiar. This wasn't a home: it looked like some heathen tomb, but there were rough-fired clay pots set neatly near the fire, and every instinct told him this was the child's home. Or what passed for it.

The child used a wooden spoon to ladle some of the pot's contents into a smaller bowl, and brought the bowl over to his guest. "Food," he said. "You eat, yes?"

His hood fell too low for Gisilbert to see his eyes as more than dark smudges under pale brows, and the skin he could see was liberally coated with dirt, but under the dirt it seemed too pale.

To Gisilbert's surprise he found he could roll to his side and lever himself up to feed himself with a crudely carved spoon. It was rabbit he'd smelled, and the child made a passable stew: bland, but with ample meat and warm to his stomach.

The first bite roused his stomach to hunger he'd not realized he felt, and he ate as fast as his weakened body would allow, falling back to the furs with a sigh when he was done, his eyes drifting closed and sleep once more claiming him.

#

For how long he drifted in and out of sleep, Gisilbert could not say. Whenever he woke, the child was there, helping him to eat, cleaning his body, tending his wounds, always gentle but rarely speaking. Sometimes he heard the youngling crooning songs, and there were times when he heard the peeping of a small bird as well, though he never saw it.

It was not until the day the child tried to help him to stand that he realized the young one could not be a real child. He had strength far beyond that of a normal child, and when, in a clumsy movement, Gisilbert pulled his hood back, the child's hair was stark silver-white.

"You... you are the one they call the forest demon..." he whispered. "But you are no demon." No demon would care for him as the child had done. "What are you, child?"

The child looked up, and yes, even in the dim firelight Gisilbert could see that his eyes were red, the deep red of the setting sun. "Not know," he said. "Not a peoples. Not demon. Just I."

"And you've done all this yourself?" Gisilbert wasn't really asking: the child clearly lived in this old tomb, and had made it his.

"Yes." No boasting colored that: it was a simple statement of fact.

"How long have you lived here?" Questions served to distract him from the difficulty of walking: he'd grown so weak while he lay ill.

The child shrugged his free shoulder. "Long time. Mark for winter, make I. Hands of hands of hands of hands marks."

Gisilbert swallowed. If the child had made all the tally marks – their placement made sense now, they were only as high as the child could reach – he must be ancient, thousands of years old. "What happened to your parents?"

The child only shrugged. "No parents, ever."

#

As Gisilbert grew stronger he understood why the child hadn't brought his cart into the ancient tomb: the entrance was too small. Gisilbert himself had to bend to navigate the narrow tunnel.

The cart was safe enough: the tunnel entrance opened to a small clearing surrounded by thick brambles, so thick Gisilbert doubted anyone would bother to investigate. Thorns strong enough to punch through leather would have that effect.

Still, the child was firm about no fires outside, for fear the Prussians would investigate and catch him. Gisilbert had to swallow nausea when he learned that their priests would burn the child in sacrifice to their gods if they caught him. Small wonder the little one was so skittish, so careful to keep his skin covered in dirt and his hood pulled low to hide those remarkable eyes.

And yet... despite the treatment he'd suffered and with no way to know if Gisilbert would view him as the demon he refused to be, the little one hadn't hesitated to help him, and if caring for his much larger guest gave him trouble, he hid it too well for Gisilbert to see.

That left but one means of thanks open to him: bringing his small forge into the old tomb where he could stoke it to the proper heat and forge the child a knife suitable for his hands, as well as some pots and other tools. And, of course, an ax. Not one of his best axes, for the child had no need of intricate inlays or decorative etching, but a sturdy tool that would be well-balanced on the stout oak branch he whittled to size, and whose blade would last for years if cared for.

He expected the little one to have no idea how to respond to the first gift in his long life: he did not expect the stricken look he received, much less the way the child turned and fled the ancient tomb.


	3. Decision

Days passed before the child returned, days during which Gisilbert fretted and worried both for his own inability to do more than set simple snares to catch food – there was little food or water stored in the old tomb – and for the child's well-being. The latter bothered him far more, though his left leg and hip ached fiercely with his extra activity.

As he was beginning to contemplate taking one of his axes to cut his way through the thorny bushes that were too dense for him to pass and risk revealing the child's retreat to the hostile Prussians, he was startled from his musings by an eagle's scream.

Gisilbert turned that way, wondering how an eagle could get inside the tomb, in time to see a wolf pad through the opening, a too-small limp bundle draped over its back. A bundle that whimpered in a child's voice.

"God in heaven!" He limped towards the boy, stopped when the wolf growled at him, teeth fully bared.

A huge black shape dropped to the wolf's head, but instead of attacking as Gisilbert half-expected, the shaped _twisted_ and then a little yellow chick perched on the wolf's head, giving what sounded for all the world like a lecture.

Slowly, Gisilbert dropped to a crouch so his eyes were more or less level with the wolf's golden eyes. "Forest spirit." Surely no true wolf would so calmly enter a man-made structure, much less carry a child... "I mean the little one no harm. If you will allow it, I will help."

For a moment, he feared this was madness, that the wolf had brought the limp, bloodied form of the child here to feed in peace, then the wolf made a whuffing sound and dipped its head, raised it, then padded towards the piled furs that served as bedding.

Gisilbert followed, and when the wolf slowly lowered itself to the earthen floor, helped to control the child's tumble to the furs though his stomach knotted tight with both nausea and fury. He had seen wounds like this but once before, when old Hanse had been too drunk to wake after rolling into his hearth-fire. The man had not survived, and 'twas mercy he had not. He had looked much like this, with charred and blackened flesh, his hair and eyes gone altogether.

That the child lived was no mercy, and Gisilbert understood now what horror could come with being unable to die.

He moaned without cease, low, whimpering sounds that tightened Gisilbert's heart in his chest and made his eyes burn.

The wolf shifted, presenting its... no, _her_ , teats to the child, who latched on with mindless need.

Gisilbert retreated slowly, turning to the bowl where the last of a rabbit simmered with what remained of the water and roots. The chick watched him, unblinking, while he stirred.

"If no water or meat can be brought here, I can do little, bird spirit," he said. "I do not wish to break the wall protecting this place." He hoped whatever magic made these animals the child's familiar spirits would allow them to understand him.

The bird peeped, and fluttered over to the small pail he'd made – easier and safer for the child to fetch water with than the rough-fired clay bowl he had been using – then towards the entrance.

The image of the bird transforming to an eagle and flying off with the bucket in its talons lodged in Gisilbert's mind.

This was no offense to God, he reminded himself as he limped to the bucket and carried it from the shelter. The child's manner had been wholly good, gentle, and surely none such as he could be unholy. Had not Father Aelfred spoken of the Land-Souls, beings created by God to serve their people as guides and protectors?

Surely this little one must be of that kind, though why God had given him such an extraordinary appearance when it would cause his people to reject him was beyond Gisilbert's ability to guess. There must be a reason: perhaps one more knowledgeable than he could divine it.

First, though, he must help the little one recover, for though he could not die, such torture must leave its scars.

The chick's transformation to a massive black eagle left Gisilbert's mouth hanging open. His mind simply refused to accept what he saw.

#

The child's burns were visibly healing by the time the bird-spirit had brought both water and three rabbits to the shelter. Gisilbert gutted and skinned them, dividing the offal onto two clay bowls.

One rabbit he cut into pieces small enough for the she-wolf to swallow so she could eat without leaving the child, the second he cut smaller strips to add to the second bowl until he had what he thought was sufficient for an eagle. The piled meat and innards was larger than the bird-spirit's chick form, but he offered it nonetheless.

The bird shifted to its eagle form to eat, and Gisilbert averted his eyes. Watching the transformation hurt in a way he could not describe.

He left the she-wolf's bowl where she could reach it without straining, and returned to the small hearth-fire to prepare a broth for the child, forcing his focus to the familiar actions of cutting meat and boiling water, of chopping what herbs and roots the child had stored into the stew, of stirring and watching.

The child's state was his doing: had he not driven the little one to flee, he would not have been burned like this. While Gisilbert could not have said what he had done wrong, he could not deny that he had done wrong and the child had suffered for it. Tending the little one while he healed was the only penance he could make.

#

To Gisilbert's relief, the child healed quickly, his small body recovering from the terrible burns so rapidly it seemed some magic was at work. Within the day new, pinkish skin had replaced the charred mess, and by the time three days had passed the little one's hair was growing back and his eyes had regrown – something else Gisilbert simply _could not_ watch. His stomach knotted and churned at the mere thought.

He slept a great deal, and it was clear from the tightness of his face that he remained in pain for days after the new skin had replaced the old, but none who saw him would think he had been so horribly wounded mere days earlier.

When the child whimpered in his sleep, when those whimpers became half-coherent pleading for someone to stop, to not hurt him, that he was like them, Gisilbert sat by his side and smoothed the short white hair while he crooned a lullaby he'd sung to his own children ere the plague had taken them.

It hurt, to watch one so young and gentle suffer like this, and when the child truly slept he prayed for the boy's recovery, prayed that he would find a land and people worthy of him. And wondered where such a thing might be found, how such a goal might be accomplished.

When he slept that night, he dreamed of a shining city in bright sunlight, far to the south, a city where knights of the Cross protected pilgrims and miracles were wrought, and he awakened with a notion he hoped was possible for the young one. Father Aelfred had said the Land-Souls could not leave their homeland and people for long lest they fade and thus die, but the child's people had already rejected him and surely if he brought some of his native soil with him he would take no more harm than his own people had already given.

Gisilbert could but ask and pray that he would not offend the little one further when he did so.

#

Some days later, with the child recovered well enough to walk about unaided and eat solid food once more, Gisilbert asked softly, "Young one, what did I do to drive you away? I meant you no harm: I swear on all I hold dear."

The child's red eyes opened wide. "Give things. Peoples give things go away."

It took a moment to puzzle through the little one's awkward speech, though he seemed able to understand Gisilbert's tongue well enough – or possibly he simply saw to the heart and meaning beneath? "I meant only to thank you for your kindness," he said. "I am so sorry I hurt you."

The little one swallowed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. "No hurt I. _Them_ hurt I."

Gisilbert wasn't sure if he could say that his folly had driven the child from their shelter in such a state of upset he had likely not paid close attention to his surrounds. Not in a way the little one would understand. He sighed. "I am still sorry."

The child shook his head. "No. You good. You not know."

There was so much he didn't know, Gisilbert mused. So much the child needed to know and could not learn, not like this. "Little one," he said slowly. "My people have a word for people like you, who do not grow old and die and who know their land and the people who live upon it. We call such as you Land-Souls. I think you are also a Land-Soul."

The child tilted his head. "Land-Soul?" The Germanic word had a soft, burred accent when he spoke it. "Good name. Not demon."

"No," Gisilbert agreed. "Not demon." He took a slow breath. "I know not where other Land-Souls might be found, but there is a holy place far south of here where there are many wise and knowledgeable men. If you wish to go there with me, perhaps someone there may be able to tell you more."

The child bit his lip. "You go?"

"Only if you will come, little one."

He seemed to think that over, frowning a little, before he asked, "You... want go with I?"

"Yes." Another deep breath, and his final request of the little one. "But... it will be dangerous. For your safety, you will have to pretend to be my son."

Now those remarkable eyes filled, overflowed. "Be son?" the child whispered. "Be _wanted_?"

Only then did Gisilbert truly realize how horribly alone the little one had been, how starved for any kind of affection. He held out his arms, silently offering an embrace, and the child darted forward, clutching him and sobbing. The only word Gisilbert could make out was 'father'.

#


	4. Pilgrimage

Once Gisilbert started trying to teach the young one his language communication grew easier: the child's halting Prussian seemed to be more an artifact of his lack of interaction with anyone than anything else. He did have trouble with some of the words – he clearly understood them but simply could not wrap his tongue around them.

Well, however many years he had lived, he had the body of a small child, and the limitations that went with that.

The confusion that came when Gisilbert tried to tell the child his name and ask if the young one had a name of his own – Gisilbert suspected he didn't – meant that the child now considered 'Gilbert' to be his name, and only because that was as close as he could get to pronouncing Gisilbert.

The ax-smith lacked the heart to tell the little one of his misunderstanding. There was an innocent sweetness to it, one that warmed the place inside him which had lain empty and cold since his family died.

Leaving the child's shelter was something Gisilbert prayed he would never experience again: the little one had grasped his hand, taken his cart with the other, and _twisted_ reality in a way that forced Gisilbert to close his eyes lest he be driven mad.

He trusted the child to guide him, and clung to that tiny hand as though he would die should his grip fail. And counted steps. Ten steps, and the normal sounds of the forest, normal smells returned.

He risked opening his eyes, and near wept with relief to see trees and not that... other place. After that, reassuring the little one that he'd done nothing wrong took time, but it allowed him to recover from the experience and ready himself for the journey.

Little Gilbert relaxed from his panicked fear that he'd irredeemably ruined things between himself and his quasi-adoptive 'father' as they walked, Gisilbert pushing the cart and the child walking alongside him, sometimes helping to get the wheels over large tree roots or past swampy ground. In truth, Gilbert could have handled the cart alone, but that would not look like a father and his son.

The first village they came to after leaving Prussia – Gisilbert's suspicions that the child was the Prussian Land-Soul grew stronger, for Gilbert paused to take a handful of soil and slip it into a leather pouch, and he knew when they were no longer in Prussian lands – Gisilbert traded some of the pelts they'd taken from the old tomb for proper clothing for the boy, explaining to the villagers that they'd been wandering so long his son had outgrown his old clothing and that they were traveling to the Holy Land to pray that the boy's affliction would be healed.

The explanation sufficed to allow him to trade his skills – and teach Gilbert the smith's art as he did – in the villages they passed, without the child having to hide himself completely. He also taught Gilbert what he remembered of Father Aelfred's teachings, though he was unsure how well the little one understood them. He'd known so little kindness in his life.

For the most part they were alone: a man, a child, and a cart containing their worldly belongings making their way south through Poland, then Hungary. They had been in Hungary some days when they heard the shouts and screams.

Gilbert tensed, and the air around him twisted, then he held a sword longer than he was tall clutched in both hands. Gisilbert did not doubt the child could use the weapon. He took two axes from his cart, said softly, "Shall we investigate?"

The boy nodded. "Is bad," he said as they quickened their pace. "Church-men attacked."

Gisilbert's lips tightened to a thin line. He saw no reason to ask how Gilbert knew this: the little one was more than merely human, and far, far older.

The attackers paid them no heed: they were fully intent on beating the monks they had ambushed. Cumans, all, no doubt raiding for whatever wealth they could find and likely frustrated at the paltry takings from the monks.

Gilbert moved faster than the eye could see, one moment still and tense, all but vibrating in place, the next pulling that outsized sword from a Cuman body. His bird screamed and dived onto a man's head, talons digging into his eyes.

Gisilbert joined the fray, an ax in each hand, chopping with cold, methodical strokes, until no Cuman remained alive.

Gilbert's sword was nowhere to be seen, and he knelt by the most severely injured of the monks, murmuring something Gisilbert could not hear clearly. His hood had fallen back in the fighting, revealing his unnaturally pale hair and skin, and those red, red eyes.

"Need bandages, father," he said.

"I will bring the cart, little one. Will you be well here?"

The child gave a single nod, and resumed whatever magic he was working.

#

It took until near sunset for Gilbert to finish bandaging wounds, for he insisted on washing them first and using a poultice of herbs in the bandages to keep the wounds from becoming infected. It seemed an outlandish thing to Gisilbert, but the child's confidence in his actions was sufficient to convince him: he had nursed Gisilbert to health after wounds that should have killed him.

By then, the least injured monks were awake, watching man and child with wariness. They looked Germanic rather than Hungarian, though why German monks would be here instead of in their place in the Holy Roman Empire was a question to which Gisilbert could find no answer.

Gisilbert bowed to the nearest. "Brother, you are fortunate we happened by in time to aid you and your brothers."

The man's face brightened. "You are of the Germans, then?"

He nodded. "I travel to the Holy Land, to seek guidance for myself and healing for my son."

The monk turned to study the child for a moment. "He is... a strange one, brother."

Gisilbert squatted, wincing as the movement caught at his left leg and hip. "He is, yes. But I love him no less for it, good brother." He sighed, then said, "I am Gisilbert Ax-Smith. My son is Gilbert."

"I am Brother Clovis. My brothers and I go to aid the German hospital in Jerusalem. We were traveling to the monastery south of here to recruit volunteers ere we turned our path to the south." The monk coughed, his face twisting with pain.

"How far is this monastery?" Gisilbert asked. "We will travel with you and protect you."

For a moment it seemed Brother Clovis would object, would claim that a man and a child could not protect half a dozen monks, then his gaze turned to the fallen Cumans and his unvoiced protest died. "It is but a half-day's walk, brother Gisilbert. I thank you for your kindness."

"It is what a Christian man should do," Gisilbert said. "I must deal with those," he indicated the dead. "Rest, brother, and be well."

#

It was not the most pleasant of camps, with blood and worse soaked into the ground, but with the monks not able to walk as yet and twilight fading fast there was little else to be done. Brother Clovis intoned a blessing on the despoiled ground, and Gisilbert tethered the Cuman's horses nearby, so the camp fire would protect them also.

He knew little of the care of horses, and none at all of the care of such war-beasts as these, but they were willing to be led and Clovis said one of the wounded knew how to tend them. The goods in the packs the horses carried would no doubt aid the monks in funding their journey.

Admittedly those goods were blood-geld, but it would be all but impossible to find their rightful owners, if those unfortunates still lived. Best to let the Church sanctify the evil which had brought them to Gisilbert's hands.

Once the monks were settled, Gilbert joined him, sitting by his side and leaning against him.

Gisilbert wrapped an arm around the boy, felt his shivers. "What is it?" He kept his voice low, so the monks were not disturbed.

The little one shuddered. "It happened again." His voice quavered.

"It?" Those damned heathen Prussians had no notion how precious the child they treated so callously was. If Gisilbert was able, he would happily end them all, such was his anger at the way they had left a gentle soul so damaged.

Gilbert took an unsteady breath. "When I angry... big angry... I want kill. Kill all." Another rough breath, then, "I _hate_ it."

Gisilbert had heard of such things. They were most common with the North-men of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, where some of their warriors could induce a battle-trance in which it was said one merely needed to aim them at the enemy. Some German men could do it, those who lived in the northern regions of the Empire, but it was frowned on, for a proper man at arms had discipline. He did not simply throw himself at his enemies and hack until they died or he did.

"Do not hate or fear it, Gilbert," he murmured. "This is something some of the northern peoples do: they call it bear-sark, for the bear skins they wear in place of armor. These are mighty warriors, and fierce, but without control, for the men of the north value such things. In my lands, those with this... trait learn to control it. If they can do so, so can you, yes?"

Even in the dim light he could see the hope in the boy's expression. "Not demon?"

 _Ah_. The poor thing had been called a demon by his own people for so long he feared anything that might mean it was true. "No, you are not a demon, Gilbert. This does not make you one."

Only then did the child relax enough that he could sleep.


	5. Little Brother

Gilbert liked the monks. After the first day camped where he and Gisilbert- _vati_ had killed the raiders Gisilbert- _vati_ called _Cumans_ they didn't avoid looking at him, and they called him Gilbert or – and he really liked this – little brother. That meant belonging and it made him warm inside, nearly as warm as when Gisilbert- _vati_ said he could be a son.

While they were too hurt to move – Gilbert could help them heal by sharing their pain, which hurt him but not as much as being burned hurt and looking after their wounds with the things he'd learned made his own hurts heal faster and cleaner – they were happy to help him learn their words. It wasn't the same as the words his people had, but the monks didn't mind that.

They even told him about their god, who seemed to Gilbert to be a much better god than Peckols, Perkuns, or Potrimp. Those gods didn't want him no matter how many times the criwe sacrificed him to one of them – usually Peckols because they said he was demon, but sometimes they sacrificed him to one of the others – but the monks said their god, whose name was just "God" which was confusing, was for everyone everywhere who would follow him and love him.

Demons, they said, were creatures that denied their god and hated him. He couldn't be demon because he didn't hate the god of the monks and he wanted to know more about him.

Like Gisilbert- _vati_ , Brother Clovis said he was a Land-Soul, and his Father Abbot – Gilbert wasn't sure if that meant really a father or like the way Gisilbert- _vati_ called all the monks brother – at the monk-place would know more.

When the monks were healed enough to travel and they started walking again with the most hurt monks riding the horses the _Cumans_ had, Gilbert was glad. Even though he and Gisilbert- _vati_ had cleaned up as much as they could, there was still too much blood and stuff and it was attracting wolves who weren't his wolves and just wanted food.

Besides, it was nice walking alongside the smith's cart and not having to hide from people. He could look at everything without worrying about how to run if someone decided he was demon, and there was so much to look at. Even the trees were different here, different kinds of tree with leaves that had shapes he didn't recognize and bark that made patterns he didn't know. The big hills, those had been strange and hard when the hills had got so big the trees couldn't stay there and the air was all strange, and the way the land seemed to roll where there weren't trees but there were lots of farms and little villages where people lived, that was nice, too.

It was such a _big_ world and he'd seen only a little piece of it.

The god of the monks must be a very big god to make all of this happen by himself. He'd never heard of that before: all the gods his people worshiped had servants and only looked after one part of the world. Maybe that was why they didn't want him?

Brother Clovis said he didn't know why Gilbert's people didn't want him. He knew only a little bit about Land-Souls, he said, and he'd never heard of there being one who wasn't wanted.

Gilbert hoped that didn't mean there was something wrong with him, something that made his people hate him. It didn't make sense that Gisilbert- _vati_ and the monks would think he was good but his people, the ones he was supposed to _be_ , somehow, they called him demon and hated him.

Maybe he was supposed to be some other people's Land-Soul, and he just hadn't found them yet?

That wasn't right, either. Gilbert could still feel his land, his people. They echoed inside and if he closed his eyes and started walking, he'd turn to the north and start walking back to them even though he knew they'd burn him again. At night when he looked up at the stars he'd open his pouch with the little bit of his soil, and take a deep breath, so he could smell his land again. He didn't know why that helped him to feel better. It just did.

#

The monk-place was the biggest building Gilbert had ever seen. Pieces of rock cut into big blocks sat on each other to make something that made the great temple where the master criwe made sacrifices to the gods look tiny. He didn't know how something so big could have been made, or how anyone could live with so much rock waiting to fall on them.

He shivered when they went through the gate – a heavy wood thing with iron straps that would keep people in just as well as it would keep people out – and the weight of all that stone seemed to press down on his shoulders.

A hand rested lightly on his shoulder, and Brother Clovis murmured, "Peace, little brother. There are none here who will harm you."

Gilbert couldn't stop himself from looking up, seeing yet more stone above him in the shadows.

"Oh." The monk sounded odd. "I forget: you have never been inside, have you?"

Gilbert shook his head. He wasn't sure what the right words for this feeling were, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to make them come out right even if he knew them.

"The stone will not fall," Brother Clovis said. "God has given the gift of knowledge to the master masons who built this monastery: they know how to make everything stay in place even though it seems there be no support beneath."

He wasn't nervous: Gilbert could feel that, almost like Brother Clovis was his people. The monk was actually happy, even relieved to be in a safe place. Gisilbert- _vati_ was the same, and so were the other monks. Only Gilbert was worried.

He looked at the floor, feeling that hot unhappy thing the monks called blushing on his face. He'd got it wrong again.

Then Gisilbert- _vati_ 's warm strong presence was beside him and his arm around Gilbert's shoulders. "There's no shame in being nervous, Gilbert."

He leaned closer to Gisilbert- _vati,_ relaxing a little when they left the heavy shadow for a large open place fenced in by high stone walls. Some of the walls were buildings, and some of the buildings had shiny stuff in the higher openings. There were even stone trees? No, stone tree trunks because they were straight and had no branches, but they held up some of the buildings and made shady walking places that the monks seemed to use a lot rather than the dusty open space.

Gilbert wasn't sure how many people there were, all of them in monk robes, and all of them busy with something. He'd never seen so many people in one place before.

They all used different words, too, words Gilbert didn't understand at all, even when they spoke slow to Brother Clovis, who seemed to speak those words but not the same way. They understood Brother Clovis, though, and he understood them, because he nodded and walked off with them, sparing Gilbert a smile before he went.

Monks came to take the horses and take Gisilbert- _vati_ 's cart. Gilbert thought this was all right because Gisilbert- _vati_ didn't look upset, and he held Gilbert's hand and followed the monks who led them to a big room with lots of long table things covered with cloth.

Gilbert tried hard not to look surprised when the new monks helped his and Gisilbert- _vati_ 's monks to lie on the table things, pulling back cloth to show more cloth.

"Beds." Gisilbert- _vati_ spoke softly. "Those are beds. People sleep in them."

He'd never seen inside his people's houses. Maybe they had _beds_ too? They couldn't have them like this, because they didn't have big rooms like this, but one of them would fit in the houses they made.

Another monk came into the room, one who was littler than the others and had simpler robes. To Gilbert he looked like boys did, a little before they grew fast and turned into men. Gilbert didn't know any of his words.

The older monks did: one of them bowed to Gisilbert- _vati_ and said, "Father Abbot would speak with you now if you are willing."

Gisilbert- _vati_ bowed and made prayer hands. "We would be honored."

#

The monks must get lost all the time, Gilbert thought. There were so many rooms and buildings and all of them were so much like each other he couldn't tell them apart. By the time he and Gisilbert- _vati_ were waved through another big, solid door, he would have liked nothing more than to be outside again, where at least he could feel everything properly.

His bird peeped softly in agreement from its place in his hood.

"Brother Gisilbert Ax-Smith," said a new voice. "You and your son are most welcome here."

"Thank you, Father Abbot."

Gilbert looked up, cautious. He'd kept his head down since they'd entered the monk-place, because new people always thought bad things about him. He was too pale, and when they saw his eyes...

The Father Abbot was an old man, with hair nearly as white as Gilbert's and tired blue eyes. He went pale when he saw Gilbert's eyes, and swallowed. Then he smiled. It was a thin, strained kind of smile, but it was still a smile. "You might do well to wear your hood, young Gilbert," he said. "Lest you disturb those who have not heard of your deeds aiding our brothers."

Gisilbert _-vati_ squeezed his hand, a gentle reminder that he wasn't on his own and the monks were good people. "Yes, Father Abbot." He wasn't sure what else he should say.

It must have been the right thing, because Father Abbot asked Gisilbert- _vati_ something about his home lands – Gilbert didn't understand exactly what the question was, and he really didn't understand Gisilbert- _vati_ 's answer. What was 'plague'? It had to be a bad thing, because both men looked sad, and when Gisilbert- _vati_ talked about 'losing' people, he meant them going away to the dead people place.

The monks had a much nicer dead people place, where everyone was happy, but the people who didn't die still missed their friends and family. It must be nice to know people who would miss you even when they knew you'd gone to a nice place and they knew they'd go there too when they died.

He'd miss Gisilbert- _vati_ a lot, but he didn't think Gisilbert- _vati_ would miss him like that.

This 'plague' thing seemed to be one of those sick things he'd seen happen to his people: they'd feel all wrong then they'd start to die. After a while it would go away and the ones who didn't die started doing all their usual things again. He left them gifts of meat when it happened because they were all too sick to hunt for themselves, but he didn't stay close enough to know if they ate it. With them sick and dying they'd be sure to burn him if he got close enough.

After a while, they started to talk about the monks going to the Holy Land, where Brother Clovis said his god's son had been born nearly a thousand years ago – that was what made it holy, Gilbert guessed - and how they'd need someone to protect them from bandits and possibly from the Saracens as well. He didn't know who Saracens were, but they seemed to have a different god, and had taken the Holy Land away from the monks and their people a long time ago, so they weren't happy about Crusaders – they seemed to be a kind of special warrior for the god of the monks – taking it back.

There were so many places and peoples Gilbert had never heard of that his head ached trying to work out which was what and who were good peoples and who weren't.

The important thing was, he was going to the Holy Land with Gisilbert- _vati_ to ask the god there who he was supposed to be and – the most important thing to Gilbert – ask for Gisilbert- _vati_ 's leg and shoulder to heal properly. If the monks didn't mind the two of them traveling with them, that was good.

#


	6. A Time of Learning

6 A Time of Learning

The monks had special magic they didn't call magic – Gilbert didn't understand why magic was a word they used only for bad things, and good things were either miracles or arts and sciences, but maybe he was just wrong about that the way he was wrong about so much else. They could make special marks that made words, and any monk who understood the marks could find the words even years later when the one who made the marks had been in the dead people place for so long he was almost forgotten.

They even had a whole building just for the trapped words, a building they called a library. Another building beside that was called a scriptorium and it had big windows and wide desks and monks who understood _reading_ and _writing_ would spend all their time there making new _books_ or copying old, faded ones into new ones.

When Gilbert wasn't with Gisilbert- _vati_ or in the infirmary where all the sick and hurt monks went so they could be looked after, he would slip quietly into the library or the scriptorium and watch the monks working and try to work out how the marks they made turned into _writing_ , or he would look at the _books_ and try to puzzle how the marks made something peoples could understand.

Writing had special shapes: it seemed to be a mix of loops and lines and squiggles arranged just so. Some patterns got used a lot, other ones were hardly used at all. The one that meant God, that had a big open loop with a dangly squiggle, then a small loop and two fancy lines with bars. All those shapes got used in other words, so they had to mean something on their own.

It made his head hurt, trying to work out what each shape meant and why sometimes a shape would be big and sometimes little, and sometimes the same shapes would make different words.

The way the monk who was called Brother Archivist would berate any monk who did anything wrong in the scriptorium especially if they damaged the precious stuff that went into the books – they called it _parchment_ – told Gilbert that writing material was expensive and hard to get. Parchment came from animal skins, but took a lot of preparing – the room where the dehairing vats were kept smelled really bad, and monks who got splashed by the liquid in the vats usually needed the infirmary.

The stuff they wrote with – _ink_ – needed ash and other things Gilbert didn't recognize to make a dark liquid that would leave marks on parchment, and the monks in the scriptorium spent as much time cutting feathers for their _pens_ or _quills_ as they did using them. If the small, sharp knives they used slipped, that could ruin a monk's ability to control the pen well enough to write.

He wasn't surprised to learn that the young monks – _novices_ – didn't get to use the precious parchment. They learned with blocks of wood coated with wax, and scraped them so they could use the blocks again and again. If it got too messy, they could heat it up and smooth everything over again, or do that and add more wax.

Even that was precious: the wax had to be more pure than they used in candles so the marks the novices made with their styluses – Gilbert wasn't sure why a pen for a wax block had a different name than one for parchment, but the monks did like to give everything a special name that belonged to just that one thing – showed up. Older novices learned how to cut their own pens and practiced on bits of old, worn-out parchment that had been scraped off so many times it hardly held ink anymore. They didn't get to touch the good parchment until they could make the writing shapes well enough to satisfy Brother Archivist, and then they were set to work copying old, faded books so the words in them wouldn't be lost.

When he could, he sat on the floor, and used his finger to draw the shapes in the dust, trying to find the secret to making words so he could learn from the knowing trapped in all those books in the library. There could be something there that would tell him why his people thought he was a demon. Or how to convince them he wasn't.

He listened to the rise and fall of voices as he tried to get the shapes just right and not all wiggly, but he still nearly jumped right out of his skin when someone said behind him, "So you are our phantom scholar!"

Gilbert leaped to his feet and spun around, raising his hands. He didn't want to hurt the monks, they were good people.

The round-faced monk who looked down at him didn't seem angry. He had a bit of a smile and the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled in a way that made him look somehow… nice.

"You would be Gisilbert Ax-Smith's boy, yes? Gilbert?" the monk asked.

Gilbert nodded. "Yes, Brother." All the monks were "Brother" because they were a made-family, like him and Gisilbert- _vati._

"I am Brother Ludovicus, Brother Archivist's assistant," the monk said. He sounded happy. "We have been wondering who was studying writing in the dust when all the students are in their places."

Gilbert's heart started to slow down. The monk – Brother Ludovicus – wasn't mad at him. The monks all knew about him now, even if all they knew was that he was a Land-Soul who didn't know who his people were – which wasn't quite right but it was close enough – and he was Gisilbert- _vati_ 's son and that Gisilbert- _vati_ had rescued Brothers so he was a friend of the monks.

He wasn't really learning though. He was just trying to copy the patterns and hoping he could figure it out.

He didn't mean to say that, but Brother Ludovicus laughed. "Little Brother, you do better than some novices who have been studying this past year and more – but that is because you _want_ to learn, yes?"

Gilbert could feel the hot flush that was embarrassment on his face. He had to swallow before he could say, "Yes, Brother Ludovicus. I want to learn how to read and write and I can't do it on my own."

"Ah, so you are also the library ghost?"

Gilbert stared at him. "Not ghost!" He backed away, or tried to. The thick stone wall stopped him before he could go more than two steps.

Brother Ludovicus raised both hands, as though he was soothing a nervous animal. "Be calm, little Brother. I did not mean you are a real ghost."

Then why had he said it? It didn't make any sense to Gilbert.

The monks must have talked to each other about how Gilbert didn't know words very well and got confused about them because Brother Ludovicus squatted down to bring his face closer to Gilbert's height. "Some of my Brothers thought that there was someone in the library when they should have been there alone. Some of them believed a ghost had come to haunt us."

So there were monks who had mistaken Gilbert for a ghost and it was some kind of game with words to call him that? There were times when he didn't think he'd ever learn how to be a real people.

"Would you like me to ask your father if you can join lessons while you are here?" Brother Ludovicus asked, and Gilbert stopped worrying about strange games with words.

"Yes, please, Brother." He didn't think it was proper to hug the monk, but he wanted to. He didn't have any other way to show him just how happy he was to have a chance to learn.


	7. The Holy Land

7 The Holy Land

Gilbert's first impression of the Holy Land was blessedly still hot earth: the ship the monks had taken to speed their journey and avoid the Roman Empire – something about how they worshiped there – made him horribly sick and he couldn't feel the land or his people or anything and even his little bag of earth didn't help. He didn't want to be in a ship ever again.

Just touching the hot, sandy soil helped: once his hand made contact the far distant pulse of his lands and people was there, and everything stopped trying to dance around his head.

He didn't like the heat much, but his robes, which were like a smaller simpler version of the black robes the monks wore, stopped the fierce sun from burning his pale skin. He kept the hood up: everyone he saw in the town, and then on the dusty roads they traveled, had skin burned brown by the constant sun, and he was sure they'd think he was a demon or a ghost.

Mostly he stayed close to Gisilbert- _Vati_ , practicing talking in his words, or to the Brothers he'd helped to save, practicing with _their_ words. When he could, he used the waxed slate Brother Ludovicus had given him to practice writing and reading whenever Brother Clovis made words on the slate for him to practice. He was getting better: he could write and read the Lord's Prayer now, and knew all the letters to make words in the monk-words – _Latin_ – and Gisilbert- _Vati_ 's words – _Germanic_. He didn't practice as much with Germanic because only Brother Clovis could read that, where most of the monks could read Latin even if they couldn't write it.

The Holy City itself was big, very big, and so full of people Gilbert shrank close to Gisilbert- _Vati_. He'd never seen so many peoples in one place before, and all of them shouting things in words he'd never heard. Unfamiliar smells were everywhere: spices, food, all sorts of things. It was completely overwhelming, and he almost cried with relief when they entered a narrow archway and passed into what seemed to be a different world.

The heat was still there, of course, but now Gilbert and the monks stood in a shaded courtyard, smaller than the one in the monastery in Hungary, but still quite big enough for all of them. An old stone well in the middle of the courtyard was surrounded by a herb garden, and there were stalls for the mules on one side, and most of all it felt peaceful, almost like he'd come home, and that was silly because Gilbert had never had a real home, not like people did.

Maybe the monks from here would let him stay for a while.

Black-robed monks emerged from the shadows, welcoming Brother Clovis and the others, and – if Gilbert understood the rapid Latin right – welcoming them to the House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem. When Brother Clovis told them about Gisilbert- _Vati_ and Gilbert, the monks welcomed them too, in Germanic this time, and said that this place was a hospice and a hospital, where travelers from the Germanic lands of the Holy Roman Empire could rest and be welcomed.

The oldest of the monks sounded happy when he learned that Gisilbert- _Vati_ was a smith, and could turn his hand to any form of metalsmithing though his main expertise was in axes. It sounded like they had no smith here, and it was expensive to get their metal tools and pots and things fixed.

Before long, the smith's cart stood in an empty corner of the courtyard, closer to the animal pens than where the people stayed so the smoke wouldn't bother the sick people in the hospital, and Gilbert followed Gisilbert- _Vati_ through shaded arches to a big room with lots of beds: the hospice, where travelers stayed.

The monk who showed them there said he was sorry that they only had one bed to spare, and Gisilbert- _Vati_ thanked him and said he was as happy sleeping with his cart if others had greater need; and Gilbert would of course stay with his father.

It all seemed wrong to Gilbert. He shouldn't feel like he belonged here, like this place was _his_. He was a Land-Soul, and his land and people were far to the north. But everything he saw felt familiar, as though he was coming back to it, and when a sharp pang went down his spine and he _knew_ without anyone telling him that there were other Land-Souls here, on _his land_ he stopped trying to make sense of it all and just clutched Gisilbert- _Vati_ 's hand tight.

"Is your son well, Master Axe-smith?" the monk asked.

Gisilbert- _Vati_ pulled Gilbert close, wrapping his free arm around him. "He has never been among so many people before, good Brother."

"Ah." The monk smiled. "Perhaps you would like to rest in the garden, young one, where there are fewer folk about."

Gilbert had to make himself speak. "Yes, please, Brother."

#

Being in the garden did help, even though Gilbert didn't recognize any of the herbs. The mingled scents told him most were medicinal, and he could probably have guessed which did what if he had to, but mostly all they did was make the knot of tension between his shoulders a little less tight.

When a monk came close leading two… they weren't men, but they weren't really boys either, and they had the special all-metal armor that only really important people wore, and they were…

Gilbert's hands clenched tight into the coarse linen of his robes. These were the Land-Souls he'd felt, and they were so much stronger than he was they'd do much worse than his people ever did, and there was nowhere to run or hide.

One of them looked like he'd been born here, with light brown hair and dark eyes, and he had a black tunic with a white cross that looked a bit like four arrows pointing to the middle. He was taller than the other one, who had pale yellow hair and blue eyes, and his hair made a bird's wing over his face. His tunic was white, with a bright red cross.

The dark one's voice was cheerful and rang across the courtyard. "It would seem your new House already has a personification, Lord Prior!" he said. "This young one is the presence we sensed."

Gilbert stayed where he was, torn between cautious hope and the tight knot of fear between his shoulders.

The one with the bird-wing hair made a tsking sound. "Hospitaller, you are making our little brother nervous." With an ease that seemed odd for someone wearing so much metal, he dropped to one knee in front of Gilbert. "Hello little brother." He spoke softly, using Latin. "I am the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, but that is a mouthful, so everyone calls me Templar. My loud brother Knight is the Order of the Knights of Saint John in Jerusalem, but we call him Hospitaller because he runs so many hospices and hospitals."

Gilbert blinked, not sure he understood all of that, or why these two Knights were calling him brother. Was it like the monks called each other brother, or something else?

"You need not fear us, little brother," Templar said. "Our kind must look to each other: we Orders and Houses are not full Nations, and the Nations never cease to remind us of the fact."

Gilbert couldn't follow the quick thread of emotion in Templar's voice. Sometimes he sounded amused, but other times almost angry. And what did all this make _him_? If he was a House belonging to an Order, the way Templar seemed to think, what did that mean for his people and lands far away?

His bird chirped irritably, and darted out from his hiding place in Gilbert's hood, then pulled the hood back, making Gilbert squint in too-bright light.

Hospitaller and the monk – prior? - crossed themselves. Templar only smiled. "Well. So young and already you have your guardian angel. I think you will do well, little brother."

Gilbert stroked the bird's head, even more confused. His bird wasn't an angel: it was him, sort of. Him and not-him, a friend and helper and part of his soul in the same way his lands and people were. He didn't see how that made the bird an angel, but if it meant the two knights – who were nearly twice as big as he was and probably that much stronger, too – wouldn't hurt him, he wasn't going to say anything.

"Come, Prior," Hospitaller said. "A personification with a guardian angel can't be demon-possessed." He sounded almost like he was laughing at himself. "You must meet your House, and the House of the Germans must meet his Prior."

Gilbert tried to repeat the Latin: _Domus Theutonicorum._ His tongue stumbled over the words. They didn't seem right, somehow, as if they fit but not quite.

#


End file.
